On gay marriage, America already gave approval

I've written before that I grew up in Suffolk Square, a blue-collar, three-decker ethnic neighborhood in the city of Malden.

I attended the public high school in the city, and thus shared classrooms with every other public-school kid no matter the ethnic enclave in which they might reside.

We were the baby boomers of the mid 1960s, and our classrooms were packed tight with working class Catholics, Protestants and Jews.

No one seemed particularly well off at the time, and real poverty was less obvious than today because there were fewer homeless people living on the streets. Alcoholism in families was real but carefully hidden, and the drug explosion was still a half a decade away.

While a large number of American cities were being torn apart by racial turmoil, the 600 or so white students and two dozen or so black students in my class always seemed immune to the tension. The truth is I can't recall a single racial incident in 12 years of public schooling. There was an Asian girl in my class and kids from two English-speaking Hispanic families who were so popular that one ran for class office and won.

Ethnicity, while clearly a divider as to what neighborhood in which you might reside, never seemed to cause much tension between students variously named Hanley, Caruso, Reilly, Rivera, Brodsky, Radivondak, LoConte, Clarke, Smith, Stokes or Lee.

What we didn't have was a single gay classmate.

Not one.

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If we had, they wouldn't have lasted long.

As I remember it, it was in the seventh grade that one of my closest friends, Marty, and I were told by another student that his father had explained to him that the worst problem with the Russian and Chinese Commies is that they were all secret queers. At the time, it never dawned on me to ask that if they all really were queer, how had they produced so many baby Commies because the truth is the thought of actually encountering either a real Commie or a real gay person scared me to death.

In high school, I double-dated with lots of friends like Marty, who seemed as anxious as anyone to go "parking" with his date along Revere Beach, where activities like "making out" were the accepted and expected right of passage.

Clearly, there were no queers at Revere Beach either. The Stonewall riots were two or three years into the future. My first cousin, Barbara, hadn't yet left for San Francisco. My future wife's first cousin, Mark, was still in junior high. I'd yet to meet the college professor who would encourage me to take the road less traveled. I hadn't yet been introduced to my future college friend, Peter, who already had volunteered to serve two tours of duty as a front-line grunt in Vietnam.

I hadn't yet gone to my 20th high-school reunion and discovered how many people with whom I had once shared classes, lunch, laughs and double dates had finally come out of the closet. I hadn't gone to reunions where people casually shared that they had a son or daughter; a sister or a brother; an aunt or uncle; or a cousin or co-worker who was gay.

I hadn't yet reconnected with Marty, who would become a doctor specializing in AIDS, and who, along with his partner of 30 years, would joyfully marry in the brief window when California allowed same-sex marriage, and now waits with thousands of others for the Supreme Court to decide whether there will be a step backward or forward for people like him.

I loved growing up in Malden, but I'm saddened that so many others who did so had to hide who they really were from me and others.

The truth is, too many of us now know a Marty, a Barbara, a Mark or a Peter to ever really turn the clock back to a time when ignorance blinded us to reality.

Let the Supreme Court make its ruling on gay marriage. Most of us have already decided the answer is yes.

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